


Fire

by ai_firestarter



Series: The Beth Cycle [4]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 09:43:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3322802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ai_firestarter/pseuds/ai_firestarter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth Spielsdorf thought she was healed. But happiness was just the first step, and the rest of this journey may rip her new life apart...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Please take care to read the tags and ensure this story won't trigger you. Wrote a little bit out of my comfort zone for this one, so please, any feedback about the content here (or tags & warnings needed) is readily welcomed. I'd hate to have written something irresponsible. I debated going this far... but Beth's journey kind of demanded it.

Beth Spielsdorf is friends with Laura Hollis.

She thinks.

Neither one seems a hundred percent sure, and if you asked either, they wouldn't exactly be able to put what  _this_  is into words, not precisely. Because it's not that they get along famously; even after months of these scheduled lunches, Laura doesn't seem comfortable enough to ramble and Beth treads carefully with her sarcasm, which makes their relationship more a detente than a self-sustaining friendship.

Laura remembers too much, and Beth remembers too little, for it to feel natural. But both value the attempt, and neither would be lying if they said there was  _some_  kind of pull between them, ever after all these months and all the enmity on both sides over what they each lost.

There are a few unspoken ground rules. Their  _people_  - Carmilla, Danny, Kirsch - don't ever make an appearance, for fear of crushing the already fragile bond they're building. They get coffee - or rather, Laura and her simple Verlängerter, Beth and her decadent Einspänner - at the on-campus cafe and talk about absolutely nothing that matters. Laura always eats the small piece of chocolate first, while Beth is invigorated by the strong black coffee she's become addicted to.

They don't talk about Betty. They don't talk about Carmilla, or the Dean (rest in hell, bitch), or what happened under the Lustig. They don't talk about vampires or werewolves or, hell, their entire freshman year. 

Instead, they joke about the waiter, a Zeta freshman named Keith who nonetheless garbs himself in the typical dinner jacket and attempts the typical Austrian coffeehouse snobbery, despite the fact that Beth's played beer pong with him at the Zeta house more than once. They talk about their classes, and Beth finds herself enjoying their lighthearted battles over the classics.

They share books. And when they do, for once, Beth feels like she's finally trumped Betty in something.

There's a side of Laura that's desperately lonely for a fellow bookworm. Though she doesn't talk about it (the rules, remember), Beth has a sense that Carmilla's tastes are singular, sharp, and judgemental when it comes to literature. And having been entangled with Danny as long as she has, Beth  _knows_  that Danny is pretty hardline in her opinions about books, too. Beth likes that about her, because she  _loves_  a good battle, but Laura just wants someone to chat with.

Kirsch is a puppy, but he's just proud to  _finish_  a book, even if Beth's influence has meant he now pushes through about a book a month. Easy reads - YA and such - but still. Impressive, for the boy. But he could never provide the depth of discussion Laura seeks.

But Beth has spent the past year softening and opening herself, so she's, occasional spark of her trademark snark aside, a pretty perfect book friend for Laura Hollis. And so, they start healing over Holly Black's Coldtown, and  _Fangirl_ 's metacommentary on Harry Potter fandom, and  _A Hero at the End of the World,_ and accidentally start a kind of two-person book club together.

"You're different than I thought you'd be," Laura finally says over a plate of fries, a beaten up copy of  _Wicked_  jutting from between her knees. "I forget that you're not the girl... I mean, that you're so different from a year ago."

Flirting dangerously close to the edge of the rules, but it doesn't feel like a threat, this time. Maybe they're past it.

"Surprised I like supernatural YA, after my bitchy takedown of  _Vampire Diaries_?" There's a smile in Beth's voice, here.

"It's just, you were so  _sharp_ , and I keep forgetting that  _that girl_  wasn't even you, really. You were.. you were traumatised, and I was an asshole to you and didn't even realise. I was  _polite_ , and I couldn't even imagine being more than that because..."

Oh boy. "...Because of Betty."

"Yeah. And the thing is, she wasn't even  _real_. Right?" Beth knows Laura probably can't help the glint of hope in her eyes as she asks that, that accidental final syllable like a tic, but that doesn't keep her buried rage from rising in her throat like bile.

"Is that why you're here? Waiting out the clock with me, hoping you can melt the glacier and get your slutty friend back?" Beth may have concealed her knives with Laura, but they'd never dulled, even after a year of learning how to handle others with care. And by the way Laura recoils, eyes descending to the floor, Beth knows she's scored a direct hit.

"No, I just meant..." Laura fumbles for her words, because as good as she is at confrontation on  _her_  terms, she's never been particularly good at guilt. 

"No, fuck it, it's fine." Beth tosses a cursory glance at her watch, doesn't even register a time, "I'm late, shit. Let's do this another time, alright? I've got shit to do."

Over Laura's pained interjections -"No, Beth, please--" she tosses a few coins onto the table and sweeps out.

==

Beth knows Laura isn't good with people leaving. That was probably her point. A weaponised exit, partly to keep her real weapons sheathed.

She knows, somehow, that Laura beats herself up when she's done someone wrong. She's so righteous and bold when there's a villain to fight, but when  _she_  has hurt someone... She knows Laura still beats herself up for tying Carmilla up last year, almost killing her, despite her righteous zeal to save  _poor pathetic Betty_.

Beth throws her stress ball so hard it goes through the drywall, locks her door, spending the evening pretending to study. Danny and Kirsch both text her, and eventually, text her  _together_ , but she doesn't budge.

She needs time to douse the flames rushing across every inch of her personality, the wreathes of flame around her compassion and peace, before she can talk to anyone. She hates that this still happens, this paralysing fury akin to a panic attack but with the desire to burn everything down.

Then, as if she's jarred something loose inside her, it rises up within her.

_"Let me show you the Lustig. It's probably the youngest building on campus, now, but even it doesn't have cameras."_

The words come back to her in a rush, the glint of a grin and a steady hand on her arm. She slips from her bed, knowing what's coming, and doubles over as her breakfast and lunch burn through her system, all over her immaculately-kept bedroom carpet.

Now there's pounding on the door, and she can almost hear Danny screaming at her, but what's a thousand times closer is  _Will's voice in her ear. It's like a flood, it doesn't stop, a stream of whispered encouragements and the feeling of his hands on her hips, teeth grazing her neck, the choking dust in the air--_

_"Oh Elizabeth, shit, you know how to treat a man right, god... Icy climate but a fucking fire underneath..."_

Her entire body shudders, sobs ripping through her burning throat, everything alight like it's on fire, and the steady drumbeat of her  _wanting_ , of her desperation for the touch of this  _boy_  who told her she was beautiful, she was fire, she was seen.

_Will's head thrown back, sighing every syllable of her name like forever, like a prayer to some dead god._

_Like a sacrifice._

She comes to, later, on her bed, Danny looming over her. Their hands clasped. There's a cool, wet cloth on her head. She cranes her head, over Danny's objections, and sees the door's been smashed open.

"Hey, babe, just... lie back down, just for a bit, okay? For me?" Danny's hand on her shoulder is gentle as she guides Beth's head back onto the pillow. 

Beth only spends a moment wondering where Kirsch is. The sharp spike in anger when she thinks his name is an immediate reminder why he might not be welcome, for now. He was entangled with the man who destroyed her. The man who took so much from her, just because she had the audacity to  _need to be wanted_.

Kirsch  _loved_  him, like an open wound, and the thought makes her want to press her thumbs into his eyes until they pop and bleed. In this moment, she  _hates_  him, and she expects he knows to steer clear.

She doesn't understand:  _Why now?_ Why after a year of healing, when she was finally starting to feel...  _happy_?

_And will it keep happening?_

==

It's a difficult couple weeks, after the first time.

Coffee with Laura stops, obviously. Laura hears why from Danny, but Beth would be lying if she said she cared much about how  _Laura_  was taking this.

Kirsch moves out, though he says its only for a little while. It hurts, how much Beth loves him, and how much she hates him in equal measure. She misses being able to be loving with him, because now, just seeing him puts her halfway through an episode. Her hands balled into fists even at the scent of him that was once so comforting.

As it is, she's hypervigilant and brittle. 

She can't even read. Even that small pleasure's been stripped from her.

It's worse than she'd thought it would be. It doesn't stop, like an internal volcano destroying everything inside her, flaring up without warning. She is Pompeii, choked with ash and burned. She's Icarus, caught attempting to escape the pit and finding the sun impossibly close, inescapable even in the dark.

 _Fire underneath_. Once the moans of a monster, turned prophecy. She can't see her life for the inky black smoke that's devoured her.

Danny takes care of her. Beth typically hates the idea of  _being taken care of_ , like a fucking  _child_ , but even she can admit she needs someone. If only to remind her to eat and to bring her homework to the apartment, because Beth's too ashamed to go to class. Too afraid that some thoughtless comment, some momentary sensation  _cold fingers resting on her shoulders_  will bring on another flashback. Thankfully, classes at Silas are so poor that literally none of her instructors care that she's vanished from the classroom. 

When some of your students are literally ghosts, she guesses, you get used to comprehensive accommodations.

For a while, she doesn't like being touched. Danny asks her not to lock her door, but she doesn't let Danny sleep next to her. Besides, she thrashes in bed sometimes, and she doesn't want Danny to get hurt.

She hates this. She's Beth Fucking Spielsdorf, who rebuilt herself piece by piece, who was was always greater than her losses. Some days, she closes her eyes and focuses on the feeling of the ocean around her, of the girl she loves, the boy she loves, their voices carrying across the water. It might be the one thing keeping her afloat.

One day, she comes out of her room and Danny is sitting with a middle-aged woman with kind eyes. "She's a counselor, Beth. Remember, we talked about this?"

Beth doesn't remember, but she doesn't have the energy to send this woman packing. So she sits and - after the woman says a few words about respect and confidentiality and rules - talks. 

That's how it begins.

For the first few weeks, she asks Danny to stay. Danny doesn't talk; she knows how important it is that Beth speak for herself, especially now. Dr. Kessler is fine with that. There's something deeply calming about the woman's attention, care to detail. How she places  _respect_  above everything else. 

Eventually, Beth asks Danny to make other plans while Dr. Kessler is over.

A few weeks after that, Beth starts going to Kessler's office herself.

They talk. They undertake cognitive-behavioral therapy to help Beth come to terms with her missing months, which - unexpectedly - involves a lot of talking about  _Betty_. About the girl Beth became after what happened. About whether Betty was entirely artificial, or if she was a potent mix of the toxins and her own response to the trauma she couldn't remember.

There's group therapy. She sits in a room with other girls - a girl who was attacked by ghosts in Kissler Hall the previous year and woke up for months with blood under her fingernails. A girl who was attacked by a monster and spends full moons chained up under the Student Centre, who prays every night that she doesn't hurt anyone. 

And Natalie. 

Of course, Natalie.

They get coffee. At the same cafe that Beth was a regular at only months ago. Natalie has her own burdens; she admits that she feels guilty over Sarah Jane's death, that maybe she could have protected her. She also started getting flashbacks, but hers were to the night SJ fell to her death.

She remembers SJ murmuring to her that she didn't want  _this to keep happening, I have to do something, I don't know who I am any more_ , only hours before. Natalie hadn't been lucid, though. She couldn't see what she could see now. The fear in SJ's eyes.  _I'm losing myself, Nat_. 

They both know what Natalie thinks happened. Neither says it.

Natalie says she's been keeping an eye on 'the girls'. Elsie seems to be the most well-adjusted, though the Summer Society offers plenty of opportunities for getting out your aggressions physically. LaFontaine is hard to read, especially since Nat's not their friend per se, but they seem to be doing well. And Kirsch and Beth...  _you were both doing so well too_. 

Weeks pass. Sessions with Kessler, group, coffee with Natalie. She gets back into football with the Summer Society, throws herself back into her studies. The fire recedes. The smoke, somewhat, clears.

She wakes up at 3am one night to hear Danny comforting someone on the phone, sharp barking sobs on the other end and  _"I'm sure she knows, I know she knows."_

Kirsch still hasn't come home. If she's honest, Beth knows she's not ready to see him. 

She's not sure she'll get there, either.

She doesn't know much, these days, it seems.

===

The school year ends.

Danny finishes fourth year with high marks, and when she confesses to Beth that she's applied to graduate school at Silas, they have a screaming match for the ages. Beth tells Danny to  _get out of here while you still can, you stupid bitch, I can't believe you're thinking of staying_  and Danny can't help but confess  _I know I can help if I stay here, this school needs people to fix it, to help people, to stop monsters like the Dean from taking over again_  and Beth kisses her and tells her she's a fool.

_You can't save everyone. And I can't watch this place destroy you._

_I can change things here._

_Or you'll die trying._

For the first time in months, Beth and Danny go to bed together, and Beth wraps herself in Danny's arms. She knows why she's so angry. She doesn't want Danny to leave.

She doesn't want to be the reason Danny stays.

Kirsch has started dating someone. A cute little blonde sophomore who tutors him in English Lit and calls him  _boo bear_  and, Beth thinks in her darker moments, is probably too stupid to survive Silas without him. 

She's ferociously jealous, especially because she misses him. She hates him for being happy, even when she catches his eyes across a crowded room and knows he's just as miserable as she is.

The three of them were perfect, a bubble of safety and kindness, and now Kirsch is with someone else and Beth ends her days praying to a God she doesn't believe in that Danny will leave her.

And yet, when Danny gets the letter that she's been accepted to grad school at Silas, Beth kisses her girlfriend and genuinely smiles for her.  _"I am so fucking proud of you."_

And she means it.

===

A week after the semester ends, Beth meets Laura for coffee.

They talk about  _The Darkest Part of the Forest_ , and how eerie it is to see Silas' particular brand of  _everyone sees the weird_  emulated in a piece of popular fiction. They talk about Carmilla (she's done something heroic again), Perry and LaFontaine (who are still dancing around their love for each other), and Danny (they are both so proud and so concerned about her staying at Silas). Beth asks about Kirsch, and Laura, without ever  _really_  saying it, says that he obviously still loves her.

Finally, Beth asks, "Do you still miss her? Betty?"

Laura's eyes widen a little - she's not sure whether it's safe to talk about it, but Beth spoke first. There's a little guilt when she confesses she does. "She was my best friend, and... it's almost like you're her twin, and my feelings keep getting tangled up in Betty, Elizabeth, Beth. But I know, now... she died. Right? My best friend... died."

This time, Beth smiles. Bites her lip. "Not exactly." 

"What do you mean?"

"Some stuff's started coming back to me. Like... Remember the time Betty dragged you to laser tag?"

Laura blinks in confusion. Smiles. "Where instead of dying, every time you got shot, you took a shot."

 _"Drink up, bitches!"_  The impression of the ballsy sorority sister running the party comes unbidden to both of them, and they laugh. Laura blinks tears from her eyes.

"You remember?"

"I'm starting to. And.. I don't know that we can be friends like that. Hell, I don't even know if we can  _really_  be friends period. I'm a different person and shit, Laura, so are you. But I'm willing to keep trying, alright?" Beth smiles. 

Laura Hollis smiles, and it's almost -  _almost_  - like the photographs from before freshman year. 

Beth doesn't know if she and Laura can be friends.

She doesn't know if she can repair things with Kirsch, or whether Danny will stay at Silas, or whether she's done healing. Done changing. She built herself brick by brick, and she'd let herself think, for a moment, she was done. Now she knows there's a lot more ahead of her,

But for now, she can drink her coffee and joke about books with a girl she'd once hated. 

And, for now, that's enough.


End file.
